Tuesday, September 8, 2015. Chaos and violence continue, the deputy
minister of justice is kidnapped, Turkey conducts raids into Iraq, and
much more.

Starting with the sadly laughable US State Dept where, today, spokesperson John Kirby moderated a press briefing today.

QUESTION: But it seems bizarre that you find Iran’s role in Iraq
as kind of positive. I have heard Secretary Kerry saying that whoever
kills ISIS is kind of – is positive. And then on the other side, Iran
and Assad are kind of the same – different sides of the same coin in --MR KIRBY: What we’ve said about Iran’s involvement in Iraq is –
and nothing’s changed about that, that – and we understand they have
concerns, they got a border there, and certainly we’re not unmindful of
the fact that they provide some measure of support to some of the Shia
militia inside Iraq. But our message has been the same to Iran as it is
to every country in the region, and that is: If you’re going to get
involved in Iraq, you need to do it through the Government of Iraq and –
officially – and don’t do anything that’s going to further inflame or
arise sectarian tensions.

Really?

John Kirby said what?

"If you’re going to get involved in Iraq, you need to do it through the Government of Iraq."

In the US government's rush to embrace the bombings Turkey is carrying
out, they forgot (a) that Iraq's supposed to be an ally and (b) that
these bombings had previously outraged Iraqis.

It's a reality we were noting in Saturday's snapshot:
The Turkish government -- probably like many others -- is using the pretext of the Islamic State to attack Iraq.In doing so, it is violating Iraq's sovereignty yet again.This didn't work out well before, for any who paid attention.The Turkish warplanes, announcements swore, killed 'terrorists.' Reality, they bombed farming communities and killed civilians.This didn't endear them to the Iraqi people.There was outrage, naturally.

The US government is now scrambling to craft a 'position' on the strikes
-- hoping to approve of Turkey's bombings while still pretending to
respect Iraq's sovereignty.

And that's why there was no press briefing today.

But there's a good chance that, had the State Dept held a press briefing
today, the press would have ignored the issue of Iraq's sovereignty.

Now that the prime minister of Iraq has weighed in publicly, the western press may have to cover this aspect of the story.

Or maybe not.

It was maybe not.

Listen to me, don't walk that street
There's always an end to it
Come and be free, you know who I am
We're just living people

We won't have a thing
So we got nothing to lose
We can all be free
Maybe not with words
Maybe not with a look
But with your mind
-- "Maybe Not," written by Chan Marshall (also known as Cat Power), first appears on Cat's You Are Free.

And today John Kirby was insisting that, "If you’re going to get
involved in Iraq, you need to do it through the Government of Iraq" --
but that was never the policy for Turkey.

The US government gladly ignored Turkey violating Iraq's sovereignty and gladly ignored it again today.

AFP reports, "Turkish forces crossed into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants
Tuesday after the deadliest rebel attacks in years left dozens dead as
the decades long conflict escalated. Thirteen Turkish police were
killed Tuesday in a new attack by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
militants as violence in the east threatened to spiral out of control."

Turkey's allowed to repeatedly violate Iraq's sovereignty and even when
Iraq's leaders -- including the prime minister object -- the US
government just looks the other way.

If Mexico was bombing parts of California or Texas and launching ground
raids, you better believe this same US government would be screaming its
head off about national sovereignty being violated.

There's also the harm that these raids can cause in the battle against the Islamic State. AP observes, "The operations however, threaten to complicate the U.S.-led campaign
against the Islamic State group in Iraq. The PKK, which maintains bases
in northern Iraq, has fought against the extremist militants in Iraq
alongside Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces which are allied with the
United States."

But State Dept spokesperson John Kirby just pretends nothing is happening.

It's amazing what the US government will look the other way for.

For example?

Harmeet Sooden (Global Research) has come up with a timeline of War Crimes in Iraq which includes:11 March 2015 –An ABC News investigation into Iraqi units known as the ‘dirty brigades’ uncoversphotographic evidence of
“Iraq’s most elite units and militia members massacring civilians,
torturing and executing prisoners, and displaying severed heads”. For
example, a “photo posted in September [2014] showed the severed head of
[an] alleged ISIS fighter lashed to the grill of a U.S.-donated Humvee
bearing an Iraqi Army license plate” and a “second related photo
surfaced of what appeared to be an Iraqi Army soldier holding up the
same severed head next to the gun truck.” In a video circulating in
January 2015, “[f]ighters who appear to be a mix of militia and
army…take pictures of a captured teenaged boy who appears terrified” and
“shoot him to death”. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch review the
“graphic evidence of Iraqi government forces committing torture,
summarily executing civilians – including children – and even beheading
captives.”

13 March 2015 – A UN report concludes
that, throughout the summer of 2014, pro-government militias and the
popular mobilisation forces (PMF) “seem[ed] to operate with total
impunity, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.”

18 March 2015 – Human Rights Watch releases a report and media statement with
evidence of “[m]ilitias, volunteer fighters, and Iraqi security forces
engaged in deliberate destruction of civilian property after these
forces, following US and Iraqi air strikes, forced the retreat of [ISIS]
from the town of Amerli and surrounding areas in early September 2014”
and displaced thousands.

19 March 2015 – Physicians for Social Responsibility releases a report attributing the deaths of up to one million Iraqis to the Iraq War (between 2003 and 2012).

28 March 2015 – An article in
Foreign Policy argues the US-led coalition is effectively providing air
cover for ethnic cleansing for government-backed militias.

3 April 2015 – Amnesty International begins investigating reports of
“widespread human rights abuses” by government-backed militias during
and after the re-capture of the Tikrit area, including “reports that
scores of residents have been seized early last month and not heard of
since, and that residents’ homes and businesses have been blown up or
burned down after having been looted by militias”, and “summary
executions of men who may or may not have been involved in combat but
who were killed after having been captured”.

4 April 2015 – Reuters correspondents witness “a
convoy of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in
liberating the city – drag a corpse through the streets behind their
car.” They also witness “two federal policemen…[u]rged on by a furious
mob, [who] took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck
and slit his throat” in an apparent attempt to behead him, and then
“fastened [a cable] to the dead man’s feet and dangled him from the
pole.” Official sources told Reuters that “dozens of homes had been
torched in the city” and “they had witnessed the looting of stores by
Shi’ite militiamen.”

11 April 2015 – The Baghdad bureau chief for Reuters, Ned Parker, leaves Iraq
after he was threatened on Facebook and denounced by a Shi’ite
paramilitary group’s satellite news channel in reaction to a Reuters
report that detailed lynching and looting in Tikrit. Parker is a 12-year
veteran of Iraq war coverage. A media advocacy group, Committee to
Protect Journalists, says that at least 15 journalists have been killed
in Iraq since the beginning of 2013.

12 April 2015 – The Wall Street Journal interviews several Iraqi soldiers being trained at Taji Military Complex, who openly say “they actively served on their days off with Shiite militia – some of them…still listed by the U.S. as terrorist groups.”

It's amazing what the Shi'ite militias have gotten away with.

And now the thugs making up the Shi'ite militias are attempting to destroy Iraq yet again. Alsumaria reports
the so-called popular mobilization -- thugs with guns -- decided to
intimidate the Parliament today as they gathered to denounce any efforts
of the Parliament to pass a law creating a National Guard. They insist
the law is being pushed by enemies of the people.

And this was actually supposed to be a 'conditional' -- US support was supposed to require that this be passed.

Over a year after Barack began bombing Iraq -- to help Iraq, you understand -- there is still no law.

Alsumaria notes
Parliament was supposed to hold a session on the National Guard
proposal today but it's now been postponed until at least Wednesday.

Objections are also coming from Iraqiya. Al Mada reports
that the political bloc's spokesperson Maysoon al-Damalouji declared
today that the bloc remains bothered by the lack of clarity regarding
who would be in charge of the National Guard -- the provinces, smaller
local units, etc. The bloc Ayad Allawi leads believes that the National
Guard should be placed under the control of the prime minister and does
not appear willing to support it until that is made clear.

If Barack had insisted that US efforts work towards a political
solution, maybe the struggle over the bill wouldn't be continuing over a
year later?

June 19, 2014, it was Barack who insisted publicly that the only
solution to Iraq's multitude of crises was a political solution.

But it was the same Barack who directed all efforts -- Defense and State
-- towards war -- finding other countries to join in the bombing
campaign.

There is no solution in Iraq today mainly because Barack doesn't want one.

He's more than ready to kick the can and let the next president deal with his mess.

Though she's failed to provide any plan for how she would
address the Islamic State, Hillary Clinton really, really wants to be
the next US president.

As Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "She's Sorry" documents, Hillary still doesn't have the brains to issue an apology and move on.

And now it's really too late.

The smug politician who can't admit they're wrong isn't a popular one.

Now she's arguing the CIA is wrong when they claim that at least two our
of 40 of her e-mails they've examined contained classified information.

Yes, Hillary, everyone's wrong but you.

Poor little perfect you.

And the idiots who've defended her -- Bob Somerby and David Brock among them -- fail to grasp, she's not Colin Powell.

Powell didn't run to become president.

His using a private e-mail (he did not use a server) as Secretary of
State doesn't really matter (and was eons ago in the digital age).

She did.

And she wants to be president despite the fact that Inspector Generals
and the CIA are saying she sent and received classified information.

But they're wrong because Hillary says so -- the woman who scrubbed her server says everyone else is wrong.

What her cult of defenders never got is you can't be president if you're compromising national security.

Forget whether your actions were illegal or not.

If you're compromising national security, you really don't qualify as presidential.

And if she had any brains or integrity left, she'd have issued an
announcement that she was suspending her now laughable campaign to
address these issues.

Reuters notes
the acting deputy minister of justice was kidnapped today. When are
the press going to start demanding that those seeking the presidency
start sharing how they would address the Islamic State and how they'd
address the crises in Iraq?